


chiaroscuro

by insight



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-08 01:12:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6832831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insight/pseuds/insight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>an alien angel thinking about his human bae.</p>
            </blockquote>





	chiaroscuro

They see themselves creeping across the divide, something strange about the way they walk, so like light they become shivers of afterimages in the night.

But they never think twice about seeing the untender and uncareful facsimiles of themselves, Castiel thinks as he remembers his encounter with Hannah. All his anger is washed away about his meeting with his brother: Hannah's despairing words, their death now only serves to stir Castiel's search for the foreimage, the warning, age-old harbinger of the storm.

In all honesty, Castiel knows that like everyone, Dean scoffs at him for this, mocks Castiel's inability to comprehend. Castiel is also aware that Dean does not deal well with not-looking, not-seeing, faith in the unseen and the sight of sightless, that Dean doesn't believe in the trajectory Providence makes. Yet the way Dean's eyes gleam in the side-light with some kind of understanding, the way he leans against the window sill, dusk cloaked, the sun sharp on his jaw as he stubbornly waits there, arrests Castiel.

***

Across the window the glass is reaping sunlight. Dusk carves shadows from the templates of their silhouettes, two doubles. Alive enough.

They stand there, beer bottles dangling from their fingers, two distinct figures that do not touch.

Castiel was filled with the revelation laden that there was no possibility for aging in the world, because life was fertile and coil-tight, and he couldn't imagine anything slowing down, any of his thoughts- _doubts_ \- being foolish and wrong. It had never struck Castiel that in the nonsense that was a human's life, they were always toiling for a breath that was their own- and that perhaps that was what Castiel wanted for himself all along.

He would dream of Dean. Vaguely, anxiously and then later vividly, pornographically. He did not even realize they were sexual. He would wake up, his mouth slack with the flustered intrigue.

And maybe he could then forgive himself for looking at Dean and _imagining_ \- that maybe there would sprout from the planes of Dean's back two white buds that would spread and spread, two bowed bones and threaded feathers; that maybe he would show Castiel the wide span, the whole of the stretch.

***

In the end, when Castiel sees that Lucifer has Dean with his back to the wall, he suddenly realizes that this was it. It sounded foolish afterwards but it was true: here was life, here was youth in the bleeding, beating, sacred that was Dean Winchester. Castiel's thoughts slow to the single moment in time.

But the truth was, Dean had nightmares at night and fears in the morning. When Castiel held his head to the curve of his neck he was never sure who was holding whom, so Castiel said _I, I, I,_ in a reassuring whisper, terrible against the solid air and the solid mouth into which he had to push the words into since Dean sometimes didn't want to understand- Castiel said and these words were so true: _Here I am, here I am._

And Castiel would gather Dean in his arms as he slowly came apart. No salt or water but only shrunken lines in his lonesome, the Righteous Man- the sky that was there under his feet, the sky in red or blue.


End file.
